You may not notice that and perhaps in your case you get better over time due to experience alone but its basically a fact that dexterity capabilities are starting to deteriorate in your late 20. I am 30 myself and while things like WoW are not a problem, competetive gameplay in more manual demanding games (like fighting games for instance) are starting to be a problem. I can still play them fairly well but I am affraid my skillcap is starting to go down. In South Korea where pro Starcraft gaming is in the cutting edge state, it is basically an accepted rule that pro players "retire" when they reach age of around 25 becouse they cant compete anymore with the younger generation. Then of course you have players like Whitera who still play at top level despite being 30+, but at that level of skill players like him are exceptional.

When I was around 40. Came in the top 20 of the BF2142 dogtag competition bagging 15 DICE dogtags. That dev deserved to die (stabbed him 3x) for camping on a South African (yes, as in AFRICA) server with 1024ms pings. Grandma can get around nicely...

Hand and eye coordination isn't the problem so much getting older (at least with me), it's that you'll tire quicker. I used to be able to game for 15hrs straight, now 2 to 4hrs I'm exhausted. The kids who laughed that for me ICC healing was a workout, wait until they're near 50, they'll understand then.

From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."

I think the big thing right now is that a lot of people don't just bulldoze their way straight to raiding content. Even 6 weeks into the expansion, there are plenty of people who intent to raid that haven't hit 90, haven't gotten to a gear level comfortable for raiding, who are waiting for their guild to be prepared for raiding or maybe they don't have a guild and just want to get into a good pug run. Along those lines as well, a lot of pugs are run by partial guild groups who want a certain amount of experience and gear from people they recruit. The less serious raiders are just starting to get into 'acceptable' gear now, so pugs should start to pick up a bit in the next few weeks, particularly after LFR opens up for Heart of Fear and some new gear is available.

3 months into the expac, all 3 raids open and still only 1/2 the number of guilds are raiding...

Numbers are not far apart for T11 and T14, and you have to count that in T11 in the same amount of time that we passed now there were holidays.

A month and a half later, and we can definitely say normal mode participation is lower now than it was at the same point in T11.

(Not 1/2 the guilds, though.)

Last edited by Osmeric; 2012-12-24 at 01:08 PM.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

Well, people are too busy with the shitty rep grind
I for one haven't even stepped into heroic 5 man yet

When did you start? I'm really casual, my guild's taking as much as four weeks of raiding off for Christmas/New Years, and I'm exalted with half the factions on my previous main (ilvl480) and my current main is like ilvl480(healer)/ilvl484(Agi DPS) with exalted on everything but August Celestials.

Not exactly a very good excuse if you've been 90 for even a month.

All classes to 100. Check. Currently playing Final Fantasy XIV. Homogenization is extreme, but classes are still fun.
My opinions: 5.0 was the golden age of content, the pruning was far too light and 6.2 is actually an enjoyable timesink.

guess most people just can't be asked to waste time online with waiting to get enough people online to start a raid.and the other half is to bussy ganking low levels instead.

Which I surmise is the reason why we're seeing MoP so abandoned ingame, too.

But raiding probably is going to be more of a slice of the pie, instead of 75% of it, which is a good thing. MMOs have concentrated on that venue for too long, and it stifles creativity. MoP shows that Blizzard can add other activities -- that players do enjoy, as Tillers is showing -- than just another boxed instance (that's never fully enjoyed other than an object to kill things in and get loot...heck, if you have 10 seconds to even get the dungeon quests [nevermind reading the dialogue] it's some miracle). -_-

Tired of these races to nowhere. Like those drivers who'd ride the shoulders to get to XYZ 10 seconds earlier (and careless who they kill in the process). Time to enjoy smelling the roses.

From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."

Out of the 2.7 million that purchased MoP, only 900,000 have leveled to 90 (33%).

Of that 900k, only 136,000 have killed a boss (5% of those that purchased, 15% of those that leveled, 1% of 10 million playerbase)

5% that have access to the new raids is pretty in line with the normal 5% of people who raid. Only DS had really seen a huge influx of raiders. LFR still holds about 50% but that is not counted for raiding. Raiding has always been a minority activity in any MMO that has had it. Majority of characters made never make it to max level and the majority of players do not even 1 max level toon.

Because raiding is not the be all and end all of enjoyment for a great many people? Not everyone has the state of mind that so many have where they just think they have to rushrushrush and get everything done as quickly as humanly possible. Hell, I've not even started normal raiding yet and I've been level 90 since about the 2nd day of MoP's release. I've only done the first raid in LFR with a few bosses in the next raid but that's all. I have plenty to be doing.

When did you start? I'm really casual, my guild's taking as much as four weeks of raiding off for Christmas/New Years, and I'm exalted with half the factions on my previous main (ilvl480) and my current main is like ilvl480(healer)/ilvl484(Agi DPS) with exalted on everything but August Celestials.

Not exactly a very good excuse if you've been 90 for even a month.

You realize the vast majority of this thread was posted over a month ago?

The numbers seem lower than past tiers but I think it has something to do with the first boss not being a cake walk. Even with valor pieces and item upgrades people have acquired since its release if you don't follow mechanics it'll obliterate you. Those that were just killing madness with the max buff in DS are gonna have a hard time stepping foot in here, although once they do they'll quickly be at Elegon/Will.

Hand and eye coordination isn't the problem so much getting older (at least with me), it's that you'll tire quicker. I used to be able to game for 15hrs straight, now 2 to 4hrs I'm exhausted. The kids who laughed that for me ICC healing was a workout, wait until they're near 50, they'll understand then.

i know the problem too well thats why i stopped raiding and doing dungeons

Call it overload. Blizz went and took such a drastic change that most people may feel already overwhelmed by the amount of required work to raid successfully that they're less interested in raiding.. Bare with me here... Previously (prior to LFR last tier in Cata), you could just run some heroics, get gear and good to go. In late Cata it was 1 raid + 2 part LFR, both mandatory for progression but still good to go.

Now, we have MANDATORY dailies (if you actually want to progress in raiding), Mandatory LFR for valors to upgrade gear (5 parts to it too), along with farm raid content and regular content. It's seriously taken a toll on both casual guilds and semi-progression guilds.

Along with this toll on casual guilds.. the 470 ilvl req for secondary LFRs has made it less accessible for people's alts. I can't speak for everyone, but my alt sat at 469 for 6 weeks through norm LFRs until I finally got a piece to push 470 (that's with some AH 476s). So, anyone who has alts that wants to do LFR MUST do dailies for rep in order to access the rep epics to get ilvl for LFRs....

Players are all about instant gratification these days and raiding isn't about that. The WoW playerbase is changing and a lot of old school raiders have lost interest, moved on or have other things to do.

Now, we have MANDATORY dailies (if you actually want to progress in raiding), Mandatory LFR for valors to upgrade gear (5 parts to it too), along with farm raid content and regular content. It's seriously taken a toll on both casual guilds and semi-progression guilds.

Call it overload. Blizz went and took such a drastic change that most people may feel already overwhelmed by the amount of required work to raid successfully that they're less interested in raiding.. Bare with me here... Previously (prior to LFR last tier in Cata), you could just run some heroics, get gear and good to go. In late Cata it was 1 raid + 2 part LFR, both mandatory for progression but still good to go.

Now, we have MANDATORY dailies (if you actually want to progress in raiding), Mandatory LFR for valors to upgrade gear (5 parts to it too), along with farm raid content and regular content. It's seriously taken a toll on both casual guilds and semi-progression guilds.

Along with this toll on casual guilds.. the 470 ilvl req for secondary LFRs has made it less accessible for people's alts. I can't speak for everyone, but my alt sat at 469 for 6 weeks through norm LFRs until I finally got a piece to push 470 (that's with some AH 476s). So, anyone who has alts that wants to do LFR MUST do dailies for rep in order to access the rep epics to get ilvl for LFRs....

Dailies aren't mandatory. I'm getting sick of people saying they are. The only reason I did them was to get enchants for my guild, and to see the story progression for shieldwall. The enchants are now everywhere so that ones kinda off the table.

LFR also isn't required. Does it help? Sure. From what i'm hearing peoples luck is abysmal in there anyway (thats all i've heard of it), and i'm pretty sure i've cleared each raid before LFR was available.

Stop the gear grind. It isn't 2008 anymore and I just want to raid on all my alts. The thought of gearing them
up to raid is absurd. Especially since all I want to do is heal and I am not going to grind out spirit gear. Valor, rep, high quality gear, honor,
conquest, profs, everything should be account wide. Make the game account centric and not toon centric and I believe you will see
way more people raiding.